Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Pillow Lava-World’s Oldest Rocks – Mardihalli, Chitradurga

 ‘Mardihalli’ is one among the 26 National Geological Monuments of India (GMI), and is being maintained by the Geological Survey of India (GSI). Though we were aware of the existence of this place and have traveled many a times through this route, we had never made an effort to visit this place. This time around, we made a conscious effort to explore this place and drove towards the village of Mardihalli in Chitradurga. We reached the village without any difficulty. A couple of enquiries lead us to a small rocky hillock near the village.  The catch now was to sight, or rather spot the old rocks.  
Welcome To Mardihalli
Pillow Lava
Pillow Lava

Rock Piles
        Though we were directed rightly towards the rocky hillock, there was none who gave us proper directions to the old rocks and we assumed that the rocks we were seeing were the ones we had come in search of, until we found a few sign boards belonging to the GSI confirming the same. The information board reads, “This is one of the best preserved Pillow Lava surviving in the world. The Pillow Lava rocks are formed when hot molten lava erupts under water and solidifies in the form of roughly spherical or rounded pillow-shape. The Lava gets chilled so suddenly that, part of the flow separates into discrete rounded bodies a few feet or less in size. This Pillow Lava has been dated 2500 million years”. The shepherd we met on the hillock also said that occasionally people   visit this rock from foreign countries in order to study it. This being one of the 4 GMI sites in Karnataka, the others are located at Lalbagh (Bangalore), St Mary’s Island (Udupi) and Peddahalli (Kolar).
Pillow Lava Rock
GSI Board
Information Board
  
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27 comments:

  1. Sylvia KAugust 21, 2013 at 6:33 AM

    Amazing! Such wonderful captures of a fascinating place! You do have so many incredible places in your country!! Thank you for sharing, I do look forward to your posts! Hope your week is going well!

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  2. siddeshwarAugust 21, 2013 at 8:03 AM

    interesting monument, must see it.

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  3. Krishna/കൃഷ്ണAugust 21, 2013 at 9:56 AM

    informative post...

    thanks

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  4. IndraniAugust 21, 2013 at 5:53 PM

    I have to see this!
    Thanks for this great info.

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  5. TexWisGirlAugust 21, 2013 at 11:01 PM

    wow, those are cool!

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  6. GeorgeAugust 21, 2013 at 11:18 PM

    This is absolutely fascinating. I've never seen anything remotely this old. I'm glad you found the right spot and that you've shared these interesting pictures and information with us.

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  7. RamakrishnanAugust 22, 2013 at 7:50 AM

    Incredible images. 2500 million years ago - wow !

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  8. MastHolidayAugust 22, 2013 at 11:06 AM

    Well informative post! nice shots of the rocks...

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  9. ArtiAugust 22, 2013 at 4:39 PM

    2500 years?! That is really old and it looks so too, those rocks are simply beautiful!

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  10. Sudhir RAugust 22, 2013 at 6:01 PM

    Trust you to dig out something amazing like this!

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  11. RajeshAugust 22, 2013 at 11:57 PM

    Great to know this place.

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  12. Icy BCAugust 23, 2013 at 5:50 AM

    That rock looks just amazing!!

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  13. Vineeta YashswiAugust 23, 2013 at 9:59 PM

    very informative...

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  14. R Niranjan DasAugust 25, 2013 at 9:01 PM

    Wow! That is an excellent find. Thanks for sharing this informative post!

    www.rajniranjandas.blogspot.in

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  15. AnkionthemoveAugust 30, 2013 at 9:46 AM

    Wow where is this..Looks amazing!

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    Replies
    1. TeamgsquareSeptember 14, 2013 at 6:03 PM

      This place is located off NH7 about 15 km before Chitradurga from Tumkur

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  16. UnknownAugust 30, 2013 at 10:39 AM

    unique ....

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  17. desi TravelerAugust 30, 2013 at 12:08 PM

    A very rare and intersting form of rock indeed

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  18. AnonymousAugust 30, 2013 at 6:16 PM

    Thanks for this informative post...

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  19. Meghana HassanAugust 31, 2013 at 12:01 AM

    This is very new to me, never heard of this place... Wonderful post..

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  20. UnknownSeptember 1, 2013 at 4:04 PM

    Fantastic rock formations!

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  21. Shrinidhi HandeSeptember 4, 2013 at 7:10 AM

    Nice information. Didn't know about this place

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  22. Siddhartha JoshiJuly 20, 2015 at 1:06 PM

    These are beautiful formations! 2500 million years is difficult to even comprehend...

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  23. MaddiAugust 4, 2019 at 5:37 PM

    pillow rocks are formed when lava eruption take place under water, that means the malted rocks should cool all of a sudden.. then where is the water now? its located approx 2000ft above from sea level.. then we can assume that now the sorrounding cities and area was under the sea before??

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  24. AnonymousDecember 20, 2023 at 3:07 PM

    thanks for the information. i like it.....

    ReplyDelete

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